Brown v. Porcher

• Decision Date: 22 October 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 79-0561-1.
• Citation: 502 F. Supp. 946
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina
• Parties: Mary E. BROWN, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, and Liberia Johnson, Intervening Plaintiff, v. Frances E. PORCHER, in her official capacity as Claims Adjudicator of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, and H. C. Sloan, in his official capacity as Appeals Referee of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, and C. Len Harper, in his official capacity as Chairman of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, and Cecil Sandifer, in his official capacity as Vice-Chairman of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, and Frank E. Baldwin, Jr., in his official capacity as Commissioner of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, Defendants.

502 F. Supp. 946

Mary E. BROWN, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, and Liberia Johnson, Intervening Plaintiff, v. Frances E. PORCHER, in her official capacity as Claims Adjudicator of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, and H. C. Sloan, in his official capacity as Appeals Referee of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, and C. Len Harper, in his official capacity as Chairman of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, and Cecil Sandifer, in his official capacity as Vice-Chairman of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, and Frank E. Baldwin, Jr., in his official capacity as Commissioner of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 79-0561-1.

United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Charleston Division.

October 22, 1980.

Thomas J. Rubillo, Neighborhood Legal Assistance Program, Inc., Georgetown, S. C., for plaintiffs.

Jill A. Hanken, Neighborhood Legal Assistance Program, Inc., Charleston, S. C., for intervening plaintiff.

Daniel R. McLeod, Atty. Gen., C. Talbot Goolsby, Deputy Atty. Gen. by: David C. Eckstrom, Staff Atty., and Robert G. Horine, Gen. Counsel, William H. Griffin, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Columbia, S. C., for defendants.

ORDER

HAWKINS, District Judge.

INTRODUCTION

This is a case of first impression. It is a class action challenge to the policies and practices of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission which deny employment compensation to women due to pregnancy. The Employment Security Commission regularly imposes the penalty of disqualification from employment compensation upon women who are otherwise eligible for aid if they left their most recent work due to pregnancy. The disqualification is imposed based upon a routine finding that women who left work because of pregnancy voluntarily quit their most recent work without good cause. Plaintiffs contend these policies abridge federal statutory and constitutional rights. Accordingly, they seek declaratory and injunctive relief to halt implementation of the policies of which they complain. Equitable restitution is sought on behalf of those who have been injured by these policies in the past. It bears emphasizing that plaintiffs do not seek payment of unemployment compensation to women who cannot work because of pregnancy. Plaintiffs seek only to have compensation paid to women who are able to work and available for work.¹

THE UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION SYSTEM

The unemployment compensation program is a joint federal-state effort. Its purpose is to provide partial wage replacement for workers during periods of unemployment. The system was created during the Great Depression to ease the economic burden of unemployment "which so often falls with crushing force upon the unemployed worker and his family..." S.C. Code Ann. § 41-27-20 (1976). This cooperative system is governed by both federal and state law. Under it, benefits are paid to eligible unemployed workers from a special trust fund. This fund is administered "separate and apart from all public monies or funds of the state." S.C.Code Ann. § 41-33-10 (1976). The fund is composed of monies paid by employers who are subject to the State's unemployment compensation laws. The system is similar in many respects to a simple insurance system. The amount of an employer's contribution is based upon the number of insured workers in his or her employ and the number of claims made against the employer's accounts. S.C.Code Ann. § 41-31-30 (1976). It, like other fringe benefit programs for employees, provides workers with partial protection against economic loss when they are out of work. Employer contributions to the unemployment trust fund can, therefore, be fairly characterized as payments made in lieu of wages. It is not a "welfare" system, but an entitlement system.

Funds for the administration of the State's unemployment compensation program do not come from the compensation trust fund. Federal tax dollars pay these latter costs. The federal funding mechanism is set out in both the Social Security Act and the Federal Unemployment Tax Act. 42 U.S.C. § 501, et seq., and 26 U.S.C. § 3301, et seq. These federal laws allow the states to operate their unemployment compensation systems free from undue federal interference. However, as part of this system of operating grants, the federal government has placed a very limited number of explicit conditions on receipt of federal operating funds by the states. See New York Tel. Co. v. New York Labor Department, 440 U.S. 519, 99 S.Ct. 1328, 59 L.Ed.2d 553 (1979). These standards apply to all states and "in the judgment of Congress are to be ranked as fundamental." Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548, 594, 57 S.Ct. 883, 894, 81 L.Ed. 1279 (1937).²

In the instant case, plaintiffs seek to have the court enforce one of these fundamental standards. It is plaintiffs' position that the policies and practices of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission which deny unemployment compensation to otherwise eligible women because of pregnancy, violate the fundamental federal standard set out in 26 U.S.C. § 3304(a)(12). That provision states in relevant part that "no person shall be denied compensation ... solely on the basis of pregnancy or termination of pregnancy."

South Carolina Law

South Carolina's unemployment compensation law creates a three-stage process for determining whether a claimant will receive payment. The first stage is a decision regarding whether the worker is "insured" pursuant to S.C.Code Ann. § 41-27-210. If the person is not "insured", benefits are denied. If the worker is "insured", a decision is next made as to whether he or she is "eligible" for benefits. Eligibility determinations turn on the claimant's ability to work, her availability for work, and whether the claimant is actually seeking work. S.C.Code Ann. § 41-35-110. An "insured" and "eligible" worker may nonetheless be denied compensation at stage three of the process. The penalty of "disqualification" can be imposed upon an otherwise eligible claimant pursuant to S.C.Code Ann. § 41-35-120. By far the two most common reasons for disqualification are those imposed because (1) an otherwise eligible worker "has left voluntarily without good cause his most recent work", or (2) because the worker was "discharged for misconduct connected with his most recent work ..." S.C. Code Ann. § 41-35-120(1) and (2). Payment of benefits to those discharged for misconduct generally is delayed for a number of weeks. Those found to have "voluntarily quit" their last job are "indefinitely disqualified" from receipt of benefits.³ The South Carolina Employment Security Commission uses these two provisions-principally the "voluntary quit" provision-to deny unemployment compensation to otherwise "insured" and "eligible" women who left their most recent work because of pregnancy. It has done so since at least the year 1972.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Parties

Plaintiff Mary E. Brown and Plaintiff Liberia Johnson are two women who were denied unemployment compensation because they left their most recent work due to pregnancy. They sue on behalf of themselves and a class of other women who are similarly situated. Both plaintiffs were indefinitely disqualified from receipt of unemployment compensation based on a finding by the South Carolina Employment Security Commission that they left their most recent work "voluntarily" and "without good cause" because they were pregnant.

Plaintiff Brown

Plaintiff Mary E. Brown is a member of the Church of Christ. It is a tenet of belief within the Church of Christ that it is wrong to artificially terminate a pregnancy prior to term. Plaintiff Brown had worked full-time as a dietary aide at Georgetown County Memorial Hospital. She learned she was pregnant in December 1977. She began to experience physical discomfort and sickness sometime thereafter. Her physician advised her not to work if work became too difficult for her. On April 11, 1978, Plaintiff Brown informed her supervisor that she would be unable to work the following day. Hospital employees testified at Mrs. Brown's unemployment compensation hearing that Mrs. Brown's position at the hospital was not of the type which entitled her to a maternity leave. See Transcript of Hearing, Claimant Mary E. Brown, 7.⁴ It is undisputed that her last day of work was April 12, 1978.

Mrs. Brown gave birth to a son on September 14, 1978. On or about November 20, 1978, she sought to return to work but was informed by the supervisor of Food Services at the hospital that there were no openings in that department. On November 20, 1978, she applied for unemployment compensation benefits from the South Carolina Employment Security Commission. This application for aid was initially denied on December 15, 1978, by Defendant Frances E. Porcher. Defendant Porcher gave as the sole reason for the denial that:

Claimant quit her job with Georgetown County Memorial Hospital on 4-12-78 due to pregnancy. This is a personal reason for quitting which is without good cause under the SCESC law and a disqualification is imposed.

The disqualification imposed was for an "indefinite" period.

Mrs. Brown appealed this initial determination. A hearing was held before Defendant H. C. Sloan on January 5, 1979. Defendant Sloan rendered his decision on January 10, 1979. The decision affirmed the indefinite disqualification which had previously been imposed.⁵

Filing a timely appeal, Mrs. Brown sought reversal of her disqualification by the South Carolina Employment Security Commission. On February 23, 1979, Defendants Comer⁶, Baldwin and Harper, acting in their official capacities as chairman, vice-chairman and commissioner for the Commission, affirmed the determination denying Mrs. Brown unemployment compensation.

Plaintiff Johnson

Mrs. Liberia Johnson worked for Sam Solomon Co., Inc. in Charleston, S. C., for a period...